Torchwood & Angel: World's Apart
by Ayre123
Summary: Crossover Set in Angel's season one and Torchwood post Lost Souls, Team Angel head to Cardiff to find a pendant that will help uncover the meaning of the Shanshu Prophecy and find themselves pulled through the Rift, facing something far worse than W&H..
1. Part One

T O R C H W O O D & A N G E L

P A R T O N E

An ordinary day in L.A. is an oxymoron at best. An ordinary day in the City of Angels involves, for the lucky ones, getting up, starring in a movie, being paid stupid amounts of cash and then retiring to a hot tub with three glamorous supermodels. In comparison to the average working people in Los Angeles, this wasn't ordinary. However, the average population aren't actually so average; as demons, vampires, Halflings and other strange and wonderful and terrifying creatures inhabit the city. And an ordinary day for Angel Investigations means killing said abnormal pests.

An ordinary day for a young aspiring actress turned demon hunter such as Cordelia Chase is out of the question. Especially when, as she's stepping on a bus to work, her entire skull splits open with a flashing orgy of images and screams. But then again, it is just an ordinary day for her. Cordy, as her friends call her, could see all at once a body of water and the glass tower nearby. Water flowed down the tower, which was in front of a large inscription about stones and horizons. And then the images changed to computers and the base of the tower, which extended below ground. A scream punctuated everything she could see and it was only when an elderly man tapped her on the shoulder and offered an aspirin that Cordelia came back from her vision. It was going to be one of those days.

"I can't carry on like this!" Cordelia exclaimed, raising her arms in that outraged way and following Angel around the office as he hunted for a file left in the wrong place.

"Cordy, there's nothing we can do, I'm sorry. You'll just have to…"

"Live with it?!" she screamed.

Angel found the file, picked it up and turned to face the wannabe star. He tried to think of something to make her feel better, but she should know by now that the burden of the visions was heavy, but that Doyle had believed in her enough to pass them on.

"I have a lot going on at the moment Cordy, can we talk about this another time?" Angel asked, referencing the scroll now taking priority on his desk. A prophecy was etched into the stolen scroll – once the property of Wolfram and Hart, but stolen only the day before during a case where Angel found he had to team up with Lindsay, an enemy he'd made on the day Angel Investigations was established.

"Ok, ok. But we're having that talk someday!" Cordelia said, snatching the file from Angel's hand and taking it over to the filing cabinet.

"Cancel all plans!" Wesley, the British ex-watcher, announced as he entered the office, holding up a piece of A5 note paper with various scrawlings on both sides.

"Let me guess,you discovered the delights of a computer? That or you figured out how we can make more money. Angel?"

Angel folded his arms and looked at Cordelia. She raised her eyebrows as if to goad him into an answer.

"Probably the former, wish it was the latter," the vampire commented.

"Your attitude is about to change when I tell you what's on this piece of paper," Wesley confidently told his colleagues.

He walked closer to them and the three gathered in the centre of the room. Wesley passed Angel the paper.

"What is it?"

"An old friend, know him from my Watcher's Council days, has located a pendant that will tell us the key to understanding the scroll as well as…well that is to say…as well as showing us the future,"

There was silence in the room for the briefest of moments, before Cordelia's face brightened up with excitement.

"So we can get rid of these visions?" she smiled, moving her finger up and down in the air next to her head, indicating where her head felt like a boulder had crushed it every time a vision passed through her mind.

"Well…yes, I suppose. And we'll unlock the prophecy and can probably use it to bring down Wolfram and Hart," Wesley confirmed.

"Where is it?" Angel asked, squinting as he tried to read the squiggles on the paper.

"Cardiff," Wesley replied, sheepishly as if he'd led them on.

"What? In England?" Cordelia asked, her face contorting to a mixture of annoyance and excitement.

"No, Cordelia, Wales. The only problem is if we all go, there's no way to keep you from burning up mid flight," Wesley looked at Angel, the hardest thing to factor in to a plan was his vampirism, after all.

"Cordy to the rescue," the ex-Sunnydale resident smiled and leant over her desk to pick up the phone before dialling.

"Yeah, hi, I'm calling to speak to David Nabbit, just say it's Angel Investigations. Cordelia from Angel Investigations,"

David Nabbit had been photographed taking part in activities of a dubious nature, and it was this blackmail case as well as Angel Investigations'…uniqueness, that attracted the multi-billionaire back to the team. That's why, when they needed a private jet to get them from L.A. to Cardiff pronto, he was only too happy to help.

The advantages for the team were numerous: they could get there faster and their boss wouldn't combust because they could have all the screens over the windows among other decision swaying pros.

"Nervous?"

Wesley didn't like flying and Angel could tell from his shaking hand and the ninth empty packet of peanuts falling to the floor.

"I don't get on with long plane journeys," Wesley swallowed, sweating and scared.

"I can tell," Angel smirked.

He glanced over at the sleeping Cordelia, trashy novel open on her lap and dressed like it was a holiday, with a little drool in the corner of her mouth. It still felt unusual that the spoilt, bitchy Sunnydale cheerleader was helping him to fight evil, but he put it down to her being a good person deep down. Very deep down.

The plane shook without warning and Cordelia jolted awake.

"BUFFY!" she yelled, looking around the plane, expecting demons, vampires and forces of the Hellmouth rising up. She was, however, relieved to find the only vampire was Angel but worried by the flashes outside the plane, the light of which managed to sneak through the bottom of the screens.

"Stay here a sec," Angel said calmly.

He unbuckled his seatbelt and made his way to the cockpit.

Wesley gulped loudly, panic filling his face. Cordy offered some of her bottled water the seat behind him, which the former watcher graciously accepted and sipped at the water, all the while taking off his tie and unbuttoning the top button of his shirt.

Wesley always dressed smartly and had decided on his cream jacket and trousers with his favourite blue tie and white shirt combination. Cordelia, on the other hand, kept things casual with her dark blue jeans and a red top that extended three quarters of the way down her arms and had a intricate pattern sewn into the bottom half in darker reds. She pulled her brunette hair into a ponytail and leaned beside Wesley, who was becoming greener as the turbulence accompanying the lightning became heavier.

Angel returned from the cockpit just as calmly and coolly as he had entered it.

"Says it'll be fine soon, we're about to land. Just the weather," their vampire boss assured his panicking assistants.

True to his word, the pilot landed in Cardiff within half an hour of the storm's outbreak. But there was no sign of any sort of lightning or rain in the Welsh capital, regardless of what they had witnessed in the sky. However, as the Angel Investigations team got off the plane, Angel could smell something in the air. Something…different. And it wasn't just the climate.

"It's freezing!" Cordelia remarked, pulling her black jacket on and descending the private jet's steps.

A few minutes spent being lost and then a taxi ride later and the gang found themselves at Tiger Bay on Cardiff's waterfront. Night had long since descended over Cardiff, the moon reflecting serenely on the water's surface.

"Are we close, Wes?" Angel asked, looking at his friend with some scepticism.

Everywhere around the bay was empty except for large crates and shipping containers. Wesley was looking around and glancing at a piece of paper in his hand with a crude drawing scratched onto it.

"Round about…there," Wesley said, turning 180° to find himself staring down the barrel of a webley revolver.

"Wrong choice," came a husky Welsh voice from behind the man with the long world war two coat, holding the gun.

"I…I'm sure we can come to some sort of agreement here," Wesley said, voice shaking and hands raised.

Angel stepped forward and looked the man holding the gun to his friend's face up and down.

"Is that so?"

The man fired two shots into Angel – one in his arm and the other his leg – forcing the vampire to collapse. The vampire's face morphed and he looked up at his attacker, fangs bared and eyes yellow.

"Way to go Jack, piss him off why don't you?" the Welshman said.

"What are you? Half Weevil? Trust me, you looked better before," the man called Jack said.

A clapping noise echoed around the immediate area, and all five people turned to face the creator of the noise.

Lilah Morgan emerged from the shadows between to massive shipping containers, Lindsey McDonald beside her.

"Well, isn't this going to be fun?" Lilah grinned.

Lindsey held up a pendant on a silver chain, engraved with a strange rune. Jack whipped around and aimed at Lilah's head.

"If it's alien, it's ours," the Welshman said with authority beyond his ragged looks.

His black hair was greying at the side and his tan coloured coat hadn't aged as well as Jack's navy blue vintage coat. His name was Alex Hopkins and he wasn't happy waiting in the cold for something to fall out of the rift. His nose was red from the low temperature and his black stubble showed his sleepless nights recently.

"Ah, Torchwood. Nice to make your acquaintance at last," Lilah said, smiling and stepping forward.

"Don't trust her," Cordelia said, standing tensely and ready to pounce.

"How do you know us?" Jack asked.

"Alex Hopkins, the leader of Torchwood-3 and his trusty freelance assistant Captain Jack Harkness," Lindsey replied, smugly.

Angel's face had in this time returned to its normal appearance and he stepped forward, the bullets causing him pain as he moved. Alex aimed his gun at the vampire.

"Not a step closer!" he yelled.

"There's something in the air," Angel said looking around and sniffing whilst holding his leg.

"Jack, the Rift!" Alex had noted the beeping coming from his Rift monitoring device.

The ground rumbled and caused many confused looks from the L.A. rivals.

"Lindsey, what's going on?"

"I don't know! Get back to the car, we have the pendant," he said, grabbing Lilah's arm.

Lightning crackled above them and the sky rippled as golden light flowed between cracks in time and space. Angel took this as his chance and lunged at Lila, grabbing the pendant just as he felt the ground fall away from beneath him. Cordelia and Wesley ran towards him and he tried to shout for them to stay back, but the noise was too loud. It was like a tornado blowing in his ears. Angel was completely surrounded in the golden energy, floating in a limbo, save a circular window back into the bay. The last thing he saw before the light completely blinded him was Cordy and Wes being pulled into the Rift with him, screaming as they all grabbed hands and silence descended.


	2. Part Two

T O R C H W O O D & A N G E L

P A R T T W O

"Ok Martha, thanks, bye! All my love to Tom,"

Gwen Cooper put the phone down on her desk and turned towards Ianto, standing near her.

"You ok?" he asked, holding a mug of steaming coffee.

Gwen's thoughts drifted for a moment as she saw a post it note referencing something she needed Toshiko to look over,

"Yeah, yeah I'm fine," she dismissed.

"That was Martha on the phone, told her we got back safely. She's just debriefing UNIT at the CERN lab before an assignment in New York,"

Ianto smirked.

"Isn't that meant to be confidential stuff?"

"I know Ianto, but I need a ramble," she said throwing her arms around her team mate.

Ianto placed the tray down and hugged her back.

"Where's Jack?" he asked, head on Gwen's shoulder.

"In his hole, brooding like some sort of vampire. God knows why he'd want to do it somewhere so small,"

"I dunno," Ianto smiled "it can be quite accommodating."

Gwen pulled away, laughing and turned back to her computer screen. She scrunched up the post it note and threw it into the bin. They couldn't let themselves be distracted by the loss of their colleagues, their _friends_. Toshiko and Owen had given the team its dynamic and were meant for each other in Gwen's eyes. But the loss of the talented doctor and technical genius just showed how dangerous Torchwood was. How it could destroy lives.

Torchwood-3 existed beneath the streets of Cardiff, policing a Rift in time and space that was on a fixed point on their end: the other end of the rift could bring things through from anywhere in existence, even through time. And so when Ianto's console flashed with a Rift alert, they thought nothing of it. Ianto went and typed a few keys and checked the location.

It used to be Toshiko's console. That was what he kept saying to himself in his head, no matter how hard he tried to think differently. Everything had been cleared away, all the photos and notes and her glasses. When a member of Torchwood died, their possessions, and usually their corpse, were retained by Torchwood. Toshiko, however, had been shown some compassion and Jack had allowed a private funeral for her. For closure, Ianto supposed. He typed in one last key and a window popped up on the screen showing a map of Cardiff. And then it zoomed in on the bay and earth shook ever so slightly.

"I'm getting Jack," Gwen said from over his shoulder.

He hadn't noticed her there and jumped a little bit. Emergencies often made Ianto a bit jumpy.

Gwen jogged off to find Jack. He wasn't in his sleeping quarters when she took a look down the hole that led to the bed under his office. Instead, Gwen walked through the corridors until she reached the boardroom. Jack was indeed there, watching Toshiko's video. Her last memory the team had of her. A video that played when they were clearing away her space.

"_And I wouldn't have missed it for the world."_

"Jack?"

Her boss switched the video off with the remote. When he turned around, the tears in his eyes were apparent.

"I wish Owen had left a message, but he wasn't cautious enough," Jack lamented, placing the remote on the long board room table.

"What can I do for you?"

"Strong Rift activity in the Bay, you might want to take a look," the former policewoman said, leading them out of the boardroom.

"Ianto, take the location of the activity and cross reference it with a map of the area circa 1999," Jack commanded, approaching the terminal with Gwen next to him.

"Doing it now," Ianto replied, adjusting his tie quickly.

"Haven't seen you around much since we got back from Switzerland, everything alright?" Ianto asked, keeping his eyes on the screen and trying to hide his interest.

"I'll tell you about it later, right now we have to go take some people in. I've been waiting years for this," Jack said, grabbing his webley from the holster around his waist and pulling his coat off of the back of a chair, probably Owen's, but he didn't let himself think like that.

Angel, Cordelia and Wesley fell so far, it seemed. After the golden light had left them, there was only black and the sense of falling forever into a gale filled ravine. Angel tried to shout words to his friends, but they were lost in time and space, scattered forever. Cordelia was attempting to scream, but felt like the wind was choking her. Wesley merely held his eyelids tightly shut and hoped for an end. And then it stopped. The wind faded and Angel could hear Cordy screaming.

"-anic." He said, finishing what he was saying.

His words were sticking and the darkness was becoming more like grey. Now it was like they were lying on concrete as another golden light surrounded them. A slither opened in the retreating darkness, showing a tall reflective tower with water pouring down it, soaking some children playing around the base. A crackle of lightning and they saw the image fade and instead saw tables and chairs. The darkness and golden light faded in a blink and the team found themselves lying on the floor in the middle of a coffee shop. A few people looked down at them from their tables with puzzled looks on their faces.

Angel sat up and rubbed the back of his head, whilst Wesley felt his body checking he was all there and then beamed a great smile in relief. Cordelia, however, sat up, then got to her feet, holding a nearby table occupied by two older people for support, and then looked at the sign above the counter.

"Oh my God, Starbucks!" she exclaimed, smiling broadly.

"Cordy, wait, we don't know what dimension we're in," Angel said, getting up to.

"Angel, I know you hate corporations et cetera, but Starbucks aren't quite powerful enough to take over other dimensions just yet, don't you think? Yeah, thought so," she replied, turning to the bemused young girl behind the counter and ordering a complicated mix of coffees.

"That'll have to be to go," came a familiar voice from the doorway.

Cordelia backed closer to Angel.

"Great, a stalker,"

"You're going to have to come with me, peacefully," Jack offered.

Angel stepped in front of his employees, ready to defend them. And then found he couldn't take another step closer because the light pouring through the windows. He had managed to prevent burning so far, because shadows extended to the middle of the Starbucks and they were at the back. Now, however, he found himself cornered, like an animal.

"You three have one last chance before I open fire and I know it's been nine years, but you're still injured," Jack pointed out.

Angel remembered then being shot. He looked down at his leg, fully healed now. The two bullets that had hindered him had sped clear of his body, blasting straight through, allowing Angel's vampire healing to get to work.

"Really? Coz I feel fine," Angel smirked, kicking a chair with all his strength at Jack, who crossed his arms to defend himself.

Team Angel took this opportunity to run through the staff only door and made a dash through a small corridor, opening out onto a back alley next to a row of up market shops in Cardiff Bay.

"We're not in the same time anymore," Cordelia said suddenly.

"What? How do you know?"

"We didn't leave Cardiff, only travelled God knows how many years into the future. Whatever year it is, I can't wait to do some shopping! The English do the fashion thing quite well,"

"Cordy…this isn't England," Wesley said, irritated and wiping his glasses.

"Whatever, Wesley, the clothes are proof it's a different time period,"

"Regardless, Angel can't go anywhere to do your shopping, Cordelia, because it's daytime!" Wesley retorted, putting his glasses back on.

"Guys!" Angel snapped.

"Focus! We've got some guy with a gun after us and we're in a foreign city out of our time, we need a plan!"

"Gwen! Cut them off round the corner of Starbucks; Ianto, get your pretty ass to Gwen's location,"

Captain Jack Harkness couldn't die. So the laceration on his arm and the bruising on the bone healed in seconds.

"This is Torchwood! You all need to evacuate calmly!" Jack announced loudly to the people in Starbucks.

No one moved, they only got odd looks.

"Now!"

The customers returned to their coffee. It would seem that if a rift storm couldn't get them to leave, Jack sure as hell wouldn't be able to. He gave up and ran after Angel and his friends

Gwen and Ianto met each other outside of the opticians on the small row of expensive shops.

"Bet you can get diamond contacts from there," Gwen commented, pulling out her gun and approaching a side alley that Starbucks opened up into.

The two Torchwood employees turned around suddenly, guns aiming into the alleyway.

"TORCHWOOD! HANDS ON YOUR HEADS NOW!" Gwen shouted, to no one.

"Ianto…they've gone!" she said in disbelief, turning around to face her colleague who was just as puzzled.

"The bins?" Ianto suggested, looking over at two large refuse bins near the rear exit of Starbucks.

"Cover me," Gwen ordered, approaching the bins gun poised.

She opened the bin, not sure what to expect and suddenly jumped when Jack came bounding out of the back door.

"Shit! For God's sake Jack!" Gwen exclaimed.

"Where are they?"

"Got away, don't know how or where," Ianto answered.

Back inside Starbucks, Angel found himself doing something he never thought he'd find himself doing, but it was Cordelia's suggestion and the only idea they had. The vampire was centuries old and had never before found himself hiding in a cubicle of the staff toilets in Starbucks. He looked at his watch and noted the time. The sun would set soon and he could leave before the coffee shop closed. Cordelia and Wesley, meanwhile, would be able to leave via the entrance once Jack had followed them to the alleyway. Questions flooded Angel's mind. Where were they? _When_ were they would be a more fitting question, he supposed. The vampire sighed as best he could with no breathe and sat on the toilet seat, lid down, waiting for word from his friends.

"The year of our Lord 2009 AD," Wesley said, reading off a newspaper in Subway.

"No one talks like that anymore, Wes, it's 2009," Cordelia said, taking a sip from her diet coke.

"Indeed. Good job we changed our money before we got here or we'd have no currency,"

"Very true," Cordelia said through a mouthful of meatball Subway.

"Such luxury…"

"Cordelia…we could be in trouble…" Wesley said, taking his napkin from the front of his shirt and putting it on the table next to his almost finished turkey sandwich.

"Huh?"

Cordelia still had her mouth full, impeding her speech, but her facial expression did all the talking when she saw the creatures outside the Subway sandwich shop.

There were about three or four of them, humanoid and hunched over wearing boiler suits. Their faces were ridged and snarled, like an exaggerated vampire and none of them had much hair on their engorged heads. All doubts as to whether they were human or not were quashed, however, the moment they starting snarling and attempting to break the glass.

Wesley pulled Cordelia to her feet and backed off towards the far wall whilst the only on duty member of staff made a dash for it. The creatures all had deep red eyes that, despite never seeing them before, seemed _wrong._

"It's times like this I wish Angel was human!" Cordelia remarked, panicking as the creatures started to crack the glass.

Angel looked at his watch and was sure that after waiting two hours in the cubicle that he was safe to leave, the sun having fallen behind the horizon for another night.

The vampire burst out of an empty Starbucks to hear screams around the corner and down the row of shops. Creatures he had never seen before, but who looked like vampire gone wrong, broke the window of a Subway sandwich eatery. Angel ran full pelt through the people running in the opposite direction and lunged at the first creature. He punched it in the face, but it did little damage as the face seemed to have strong bones in it. He tried again, kneeing it in the stomach and throwing it to the floor. Another of the four creatures swiped at him, slicing his favourite shirt open and making him bleed. A glance inside the shop identified the intended victims as Cordelia and Wesley, who were attempting to hold them off with whatever they could find, including half eaten subs.

"Fire!" Jack called out.

A wave of bullets mowed down Angel and one of the weaker creatures. Angel looked up, his face distorted in its vampire form.

"Jack, what the hell is he?!" Gwen asked in surprise.

"Doesn't matter right now, just stop the Weevils," Jack commanded.

Angel threw another Weevil into a wall but it got back up again with only minor damage to its back.

"Their eyes…" Ianto said, shooting at one of the Weevils who was inside the Subway.

He pulled out his Weevil spray and forced it into the face of the closest Weevil, and then the one Angel was fighting. They recoiled and lost the crimson glow in their eyes. It was almost as if they were surprised to find themselves being manhandled and out in the streets.

The Weevils then saw Angel and began to bow in their hunched way, getting down on the floor. Angel looked over to Jack.

"What are they doing?"

"It can't be…" Jack said in awe.

"Doesn't that mean he's…dead?" Gwen asked, gun still held steady, facing Angel.

Cordelia and Wesley made their way through the broken window, stepping over the bodies and stood behind Angel.

"A little bit, yeah,"


End file.
